


Is It Later Yet?

by ursa_maritima



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 1 (Critical Role), F/M, sometime post ep72
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 18:29:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15977978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ursa_maritima/pseuds/ursa_maritima
Summary: So there's this scene in Tomorrow Never Dies where Paris Carver says "Tell me, James- Do you still sleep with a gun under your pillow?" and I went "that sounds like Vex teasing Percy."(and then the part of my brain saying "no, you have six hours left to sleep before your next shift" went up against the writing gremlin brain and lost miserably.)





	Is It Later Yet?

Vex was taking a shortcut through the great dining hall of Whitestone Castle when she heard the _tak-tak-tak_ of familiar boots..  
“Running indoors again, darling?” She turned to face the sound and her face grew concerned as she took in Percival’s tightly-controlled expression.  
“Vex’ahlia! Excellent. Is Trinket in your necklace?”  
“Yes. Percy, what on-”  
“Please, we’ve no time; would you pop him out and have him run for the Sun Tree?” Vex stared at him, rolling the stone in her fingers with concern.  
“Will he be in danger?”  
“No, no. he’ll be perfectly safe, just- please, Vex’ahlia.” She raised one eyebrow at him and shrugged, releasing Trinket.  
“Trinket, dear? Run to the Sun Tree and wait for me? I’ll be along in a bit.” Trinket hruffed and began lumbering off, the motion reverberating through the polished floor, although- no, the frequency was off. Vex blinked down at her feet in startled surprise.   
“Do you feel that?” she began to ask Percy, but her words were lost in a sudden flurry of motion as Percy swore at something, his hand buried in the wall; a hidden compartment grated open. He stepped away, closed both hands around her forearms, then tugged her into the yawning darkness, her braid thumping against her chest as the doorway snapped shut suddenly. “What the fuck is-” the tremor she’d felt in the floor intensified, the bellow echoing through the room they’d just vacated low and vicious enough that she took an involuntary step back into Percy. He gripped her shoulder with one hand, leaning forward to breathe a whisper into her ear.  
“They’re hunting us. If we can manage to stay hidden, we ought to be all right.” Vex turned her head, close enough now that his glasses brushed her cheek, and took a measured breath in.  
“You said Trinket would be safe,” she said, her words a faint breath of warning, steel peeking through the velvet warmth of her voice.  
“They’re not looking for him,” Percy replied just as quietly. “They’ll see we’re not with him and pass him by.” He scrunched his eyes shut, careful to keep his wince limited to the grimace. This had been a terrible plan. _Terrible._ Not the running and hiding; he really did not want to get caught. But this, the hide-in-the-assassin’s-nook part of the plan? Honestly, Percival. The passage to the south study is less than six steps away, and an easier entrance to open. A nice, poorly lit, lovely dusty passageway that they could have been walking soundlessly down towards a nice, well lit, comfortable study. Instead, they were stuck, two people crammed in a space intended for one, mere inches from discovery, and Percival was starting to take this as proof he’d finally begun to lose his mind. The dining hall was cool- too big to heat easily- and this space had been colder still, buried in the external wall as it was. But now it was too warm, too close, too dark. It was impossible to see anything, but he could feel the minute shifting of her breathing, sense the way she’d been moving her arms to slowly take the measurements of the little cubby. He took a steadying breath and instantly regretted it once the faint smoke-and-spice, pine-and-fur scent of her hair hit his nose, sending a spike of longing through him. He thought mournfully of his coat, currently freshly washed and hanging in his workshop to dry, and shifted his weight away. Vex took advantage of his sidelong step to twist, the stiff band of embroidery at her tunic’s hem rasping across the front of the thin fabric across his thighs. Percy bit hard at the side of his cheek, shifting another tiny step, trying for enough distance that he could concentrate on regaining his dignity.  
  
“Stand still!” Vex hissed at him, and he startled, the faint scuff of his heel sounding far louder in the dark.  
“I am endeavoring to do so,” he whispered back.  
“No, you’re not, you keep…wiggling. You’re going to knock into something back there and alert them that we’re hidden here.”  
“I’m being cautious, I’m not-” there was a brief scrape of ceramic on stone, and they froze, holding their breath while listening intently for any sign they’d been discovered. Another faint, strange drag of sound, this time from farther away; and then nothing. “I think we remain undiscovered,” Percy whispered in the barest hint of sound, softer even than before.  
“No thanks to your fidgeting,” Vex hissed just as quietly. “Some sniper you are.”  
“What?” He was pretty sure the last bit he hadn’t heard was something uncomplimentary. Vex slowly, cautiously half-twisted around, feeling in the darkness for his shoulder and using that as a guide to aim her next words at Percy’s ear.  
“Stay. Still!” she whispered, her lips close enough to feel the heat of his neck trapped by his collar. Percy’s next breath was a rough sharp exhale as though she’d hit him in the solar plexus, and he shook his head sharply. Vex brought her other hand up to touch his cheek, concern making her voice rise slightly. “Percival! What did you touch? Are you-”  
“I’m fine, Vex’ahlia, please-” One long metallic scrape and a set of heavy footfalls far too near their hiding place knocked them both silent again. Their instinctive withdrawl from the sound had ended with Percy pressed once again against the rough stonework at the back of the cubby, one arm tangled with Vex’s own across her body from pulling her away, the other braced against the wall beside them. Vex twisted back, freeing her right hand and taking a soundless half-step back into Percy’s space. It was a familiar motion; clearing his sightlines in case he had to fire, freeing her to be able to draw her bow fully- but it brought the whole line of her body up flush against his, and Percy flinched.  
“No-”  
“…oh.” the first sound Vex breathed was startled, surprised. Percy took a shallow breath in hope that- “ _…oh._ ” -no, that sound was definitely Vex'ahlia-on-the-prowl and he was most definitely not getting out of this with his dignity intact. “So,” he heard her whisper as she leaned her head back against his shoulder - and it should not be possible to put that much innuendo in two letters of a word that weren’t hardly even given enough breath to count as speech, honestly. She was so close he could feel the puffs of air as she spoke.  
“Percival, darling.” Oh, gods, that voice should be illegal. He was doomed.  
“Vex-”  
“Is that-”  
“Do not.”  
“-Bad News-”  
“Vex’ahlia, I swear on-”  
“-in your pocket or are you just-” he managed to get his hand free in time to muffle the last of her words with his fingers pressed lightly to her lips, feeling the heat roaring across his cheeks and down the back of his neck. He didn’t need to see to know he was blushing as red as his worst sunburn, and he didn’t need to see to know that Vex was shaking with silent laughter. He could feel it, tucked tightly as she was against him, which was, in fact, the problem. He closed his eyes tightly and took a slow deep breath in.  
“There is, at this very moment, an unknown force hunting us. that is, some-” he snapped his teeth shut with a faint click reflexively. She’d licked him. Not -not _teasingly_ , thank the gods, but -oh, he tried to stop the thought, but it was inevitable at this point- like a sibling, a long gross slobbery get-your-hand-off-my-face thing. He repressed a shudder. “If that was revenge for that time in the fire plane when Pike and I kept teasing-” he stopped, her hand gripping his wrist in warning.  
“We agreed to never mention that again,” she growled. (Which, again; entirely unfair). He felt her shift away slightly, and was both thankful and mournful at once. “Wait, Percy; there was even less room in that little spiderling alcove we were stuck in, and we were just as close then, and you weren’t-” she paused. Percy sighed.  
“No, you’re quite right, we were in a much tighter spot, but Vex, dear- I was in my armor, my coat.”  
“Oh.” She released his wrist. “So-” He hated how hesitant she sounded now, the confident teasing note vanished from her voice. Hell with it. What’s dignity worth, anyway?  
“We hadn’t been up there three minutes before you’d complained you were freezing your arms off, had wriggled your way into my coat and tucked your hands and mine under your arms, Vex; of course I’d felt - warmer.” She stood stock-still briefly, the tiny separation between them seeming to stretch impossibly wide, before he felt feather-light touches at his sleeves, his wrists, before she interlaced their fingers and crossed his arms along with hers around her waist, tugging him forward, closing the distance.  
“Like this.”  
“Yes.” Was it possible for a near-soundless whisper to be hoarse? Percy felt like it shouldn’t, on principle.  
“You know, Percy, back in that alcove when you leaned forward to get a better sightline… I almost thought you were going to kiss me.” The hesitancy was gone, but her voice was too close to the casual tease she used to such wonderful effect on merchants and guards.  
“I was a bit too focused on the impending spiderling torrent and not getting stabbed,” he replied.  
“I highly doubt I would have stabbed you, Percival.”  
“Perhaps not. Vax, on the other hand…”  
“Vax wouldn’t stab you. Not anywhere vital, at least.” She tightened her fingers around his. “I’m teasing! Trap your bedroom door, certainly, but he wouldn’t stab you. I’d be upset with him.”  
“You’d be upset? I’d be the one with the stab wound.”  
“Percival, you collect and categorize wounds like interesting bits of tinkering.” Her voice was still a faint wisp of sound, but growing sharper, more pointed with each word.  
“I-”  
“Oh, go on; do try to convince me otherwise. Or, no. I need you to stop that.”  
“Stop what?” She was silent for a long moment.  
“Stop getting hurt.” he felt his eyebrows twitch upwards in surprise.  
“Vex’ahlia, we’re not exactly in the business of staying safe, dear.”  
“You like to court unnecessary risk, Percival. I’m not telling you to not stub your toe or blow your eyebrows off in your workshop or get into a cannonball contest with Grog with predictably disastrous results, I just need you to- to stay alive.”  
“…Vex, I-” He felt the swing of her braid as she shook her head.  
“My brother sacrificed himself for me, and it seems to have worked out in the end, but think how horrible that could have become. If the Raven Queen had been some dark deity, if-” Vex twisted her fingers in the soft silk of his sleeve. “I don’t want anyone to do that again. I won’t risk any more of my family for my sake.”  
Percy tightened his arms around her, reliving that long moment in the Champion’s tomb. Vex falling like a stone, crumpling bonelessly against the worked stone of the floor, bone-pale and empty-eyed was at the top of his list of ‘Reasons Percival Exhausts Himself Before Sleep.’ He wanted to reassure her, but he’d known for a long time that he’d take any devil’s bargain in a heartbeat if it kept her safe.  
“Did you give this lecture to Vax, as well?"  
“No,” she said reluctantly. “Not for lack of trying.”  
“It doesn’t work because his rebuttal is demanding the same from you, isn’t it.”  
“Yes. He knows I can’t allow that, he’s my brother, he’s part of me, I love him.”  
“I can’t make that agreement, either,” he whispered, the words faint, but resolute. He shouldn’t be saying them. He couldn’t not say them. The silence stretched between them for a long few breaths; his breaths. Vex’ahlia was so still he wasn’t sure she’d taken any. Finally he felt her ribs expand.  
“You’re not my brother, you don’t owe-”  
“No. But I- you’ve taken my home from me. Not-” It wasn’t what he’d meant to say. All his thoughts, the smooth practiced cadence of his speech, they were all tangled around. “Whitestone is the De Rolo home, but… mine is wherever you happen to be, Vex’ahlia.”

  


That wasn’t at all what she’d expected. She’d admit part of her, that stubborn remnant of childish dreamer, had been hoping for a dramatic confession of undying love, but that- was beyond silly. Vex wasn’t sure what love was, if it wasn’t- this. She knew what lust was, she was comfortable with that; knew the dance of flirting, of chances. She’d appreciated those _ridiculous_ shoulders hiding under that ridiculous coat long before she’d realized he wasn’t just the dangerous posh aristocrat he presented himself as. And yes, she’d said she’d loved him countless times, but it was the same word she used with the rest of her family. Love? Of course she loved Vax- he was just hers, hers the way her arms felt at full draw, the way his daggers hummed as they flew past her ear, the way Trinket was in a cold campsite- an ever-burning point of light. But she also loved Pike, her pint-sized light with just a hint of bloodthirst; loved Grog, his goliath-sized bloodthirst with just a hint of light. She loved Scanlan’s fuck-you-i’m- _winning_ attitude, loved the way Keyleth was ever-changing, ever growing, and yet always remaining Keyleth- even loved her a little differently, now that she’d seen how Vax was with Keyleth, she had to admit. She loved Tiberius with the distant ache for the memory of his sputtering bluster.  
When she’d stood in front of Saundor and told him her heart was someone else’s, she’d meant theirs- Vox Machina’s- at first. But as the fight had gone on she’d realized there’d only been one name on her lips with each arrow she’d fired, and she wasn’t sure how to handle that, even now. Especially now, after watching him fall. Fearing he’d been gone for good, fearing that this…  
“Every home I’ve ever had has been destroyed.” She realized she’d said it out loud only after she felt Percy’s surprised shift behind her. “That’s how it felt when I watched you die. Like losing home again.”  
“Vex, I-”  
“Ssh.” a moment later he heard what she’d noticed before hushing him to silence. Steady, unhurried footsteps clicked slowly, inexorably nearer before stopping just on the other side of the hidden door.  
“Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski De Rolo the Third,” the words rolled in a carelessly musical lilt that had more in common with a war cry or a funeral dirge than a herald’s call. Percy twitched. He knew that voice. “And, if I am not entirely mistaken, Lady Vex’ahlia, Baroness of the Third House of Whitestone and Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt.” It was Vex’s turn to twitch.  
“Cassandra,” he whispered. Vex nodded.  
“There is a _stunningly_ intoxicated goliath in the central courtyard attempting to convince my personal guard that ‘victory pissing’ on the walls of the courtyard is a sacred tradition. Above them, also in the courtyard, is an equally intoxicated dark-winged half-elf towing the chief cleric of Saranrae’s temple here in Whitestone in mid-air; they have written a song, though the words are indistinct beyond ‘Pike kite Pike kite motherfucking monstaaah Pike,’ so there may be some nuance that I am unable to comprehend.” Cassandra’s voice was far too calm. Percy knew that calm- that was a dangerous level of calm. “There is, as well, the most dejected looking bear I have ever seen with the most beautiful, intricate braiding I have ever seen slowly inching his way down the hall towards the main exit. He is currently dragging a druid who has managed to braid herself into him. Your bard has collected an audience at the gate by declaiming the most terrible of limericks - limericks so terrible they cannot physically bring themselves to turn away and save themselves.” There was a sharp, heavy rap of metal against the hidden door. “The two of you have _three minutes_ to get them out of my castle. If you fail, I will _personally_ see to it that you do not get a single moment of time to yourselves from now until Winter’s Crest.”  
“Fuck.” Vex dug her elbow into Percy’s side to shush him.  
“However- if there is blessed silence in my castle within three minutes, I will make certain there is placed on the schedule an inviolable meeting of the heads of the houses of Whitestone in residence each week, of which, I am sure you will recognize, there are currently only three. The three of us, to be precise. I will not be attending those meetings in the private library.” Her next words were far more faint, accompanied by more measured clicking footsteps. “Pelor willing, I will be _well_ out of earshot.”  
The footsteps faded into silence. Vex broke it with a snort of laughter.  
“Well. You did say we’d talk later.”  
“Trapped in a cabinet so small we can scarcely stand upright while waiting on our doom in the form of the superbly intoxicated rest of Vox Machina to find us isn’t exactly where I’d pictured us having this discussion,” Percy retorted, but Vex just let a low chuckle escape. He heard the gentle chime of her earring as she shook her head. Any thought Percy had been trying to form dissipated like mist once he felt her fingers creep slowly across the back of his neck and up into the scruff of hair at the base of his skull, pulling him inexorably down to her.  
“Oh, Percy darling,” she said, that velvety rasp back in her voice. “In the dark, with danger inches away is just perfect for this-” her last word was lost, soundless, as she tilted her head back and kissed him. A gentle kiss turned nippy and hungering, and over far too soon as she spun around, both hands braced on his chest. “Percy-” there was an odd note in her voice that he couldn’t parse.  
“Vex?”  
“…dibs on my idiot brother and Pike.”  
“Oh gods no, you take Grog and Scanlan, I’ll take Vax and Pike.”


End file.
